Judge To Decide Whether To Admit Confession

May 17, 1985|By Jon Peck, Staff Writer

On the day he was captured in New Jersey, Ontra Jones told police that he ``just threw the gas and ran`` while a friend set fire to a West Palm Beach pawnshop clerk, according to a taped confession played in court Thursday.

In the taped confession, Jones said he went to a church every day ``praying for forgiveness`` after the Jan. 4, 1984, firebombing death of Robert Hansen Jr. during an aborted robbery he planned with Kevin Nelms, then 16.

Jones also worried in the days after his capture about the possibility of dying in Florida`s electric chair, according to a West Palm Beach police official who brought Jones back from Atlantic City after he was arrested there eight days following the killing.

Prosecutors believe Jones doused Hansen with gasoline during the attempted robbery before Nelms threw a Molotov cocktail into the pawnshop. Hansen, burned over most of his body, died 11 hours later.

``I told him (Nelms), `You didn`t do what you was supposed to do. You burnt the man up,` `` Jones told West Palm Beach police, who interviewed him in an Atlantic City police station.

Defense attorney Barry Krischer has asked Circuit Judge Marvin Mounts to rule the taped confession inadmissible in court, arguing Jones did not knowingly waive his right to have an attorney present. Krischer also said the tape is invalid because 18 minutes of questioning were not recorded due to a mechanical problem.

Mounts said he will hear more testimony next week before deciding whether to allow the confession to be used as evidence at trial.

Jones, whose ankles were shackled because he escaped from jail earlier this year, sat quietly as he listened to his recorded voice describe the events surrounding the murder of Hansen, 59, who had just retired after 30 years as a West Palm Beach city building inspector.

In his taped confession, Jones placed most of the blame for the torching on Nelms, who was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison for his part in the death.

According to Jones, he had been drinking before he and Nelms agreed to go to the pawnshop to steal some jewels. Instead of a gun, knife or other common weapon, the two friends planned to use a bucket of gasoline and a lighted Molotov cocktail.

Jones said he didn`t think about how Nelms would get the pawnshop clerk to turn over jewelry. ``He knew what he was going to do. I couldn`t change his plan,`` Jones told police.

He said the two waited for customers to leave the shop, and he didn`t see Hansen inside ``until I threw the gas. It wasn`t supposed to happen.``